e initial stage of which was to analyse a number of individuals to try and identify and define these two 'poles of orality'. Two sets of traits did emerge, which correlated roughly with the accepted pessimistic oral and optimistic oral personalities. However Goldman-Eisler's pessimistic oral personality type did not have the traits of impulsion, aggression and autonomy, which according to Goldman-Eisler, "psychoanalysts consider to be important traits of oral character". The fact that Blum and Miller (1952), in a study published one year later include dependency, the complete antithesis of autonomy, as a characteristic of the pessimistic oral personality, would seem to indicate some degree of confusion as to what exactly does constitute the oral personalities.
             Another attempt to demonstrate the existence of the oral pessimistic personality was that experiment carried out by Blum and Miller (1952). They began by identifying those traits they saw as making up this personality, these are listed in appendix i. Their experiment was designed to show a link between the primary trait of an orally fixated individual; numerous mouth and tongue movements and mouth touching, with the personality traits they had identified. The experiment was carried out on a class of eight year olds in a U.S. school. Blum and Miller began by giving each child an orality rating, by observing the number of mouth movements and actions they made in a set period. They then designed and carried out a different experiment to test each of the oral traits of personality, the experiments were all carried out in a normal school environment.
             The methods were all quite complex, but to give an indication of the sort of experimental design used I will outline how Blum and Miller graded the children on their interest in food. At lunchtime the children were given a meal large enough to sate even the largest eight year old appetite, they were then offered as many one ounce pots...